12+Sansom

Urban development is a delicate balancing act, and sometimes we must say goodbye to cherished local destinations in order to make way for a plan that is ultimately more beneficial to the community and to the city at large. One of such trade-offs is slated to occur at 7619 Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy, Northwest Philadelphia, where the Trolley Car Diner is set to meet the wrecking ball, to be replaced by a six-story, mixed-use residential development designed by Morrissey Design. Although the charming chrome, neon, mural, and freestanding trolley of the diner will be missed, the proposal at hand makes for more effective use of the site, bringing significant residential density within a two0-block walk of the Mount Airy Station of the SEPTA Regional Rail and replacing the auto-centric restaurant with pedestrian-friendly retail.

A year ago, the start of August marked the launch of Philadelphia YIMBY. We were excited to extend New York YIMBY’s years-long legacy of covering architecture, construction, and development to the City of Brotherly Love. Since that time, our staff has shared over 1,000 articles, covering a wide variety of topics that were cataloged into more than 1,800 categories. In celebration of Philly YIMBY’s first anniversary, we look at our most frequently tagged categories in a month-long series of articles that will run as a countdown that starts with the 31th most-popular category and will run until it hits number one. Today we begin our countdown by looking at Rittenhouse Square and Brewerytown, the two categories tied for the 31st place.